Three Ways to Increase Your Shop’s Value
May 12, 2017
When an investor/owner considers which repair shop to purchase, they look at a wide range of factors to determine a shop’s value. Some of these factors are difficult to impact, such as the shop location, the age of the shop, or the number of bays and lifts that will fit in the building. But the biggest factors can be heavily impacted by shop management. Here are three shop value factors that you can improve today to increase the value of your repair shop.
#1 – Is the business independent from the owner? Unless you’re planning on working for the new owners for years, you don’t want a tremendous amount of the shop’s value to be tied up in your presence. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be active in your own shop – it does mean that someone else at your shop needs to be able to perform any of the duties you’re doing on a daily basis, whether that’s high-level repair, customer relations or earning new business for the shop.
How true is this for your shop? If you haven’t been out of your shop for a while, take a few of days off-site to focus on company strategy, and gauge the results of your absence. It will likely be apparent what issues need the most attention for the shop to gain self-sufficiency.
#2 – What type of work are you performing? If your shop is focused on heavy line work such as transmissions and power-trains, your shop will be worth a higher multiple of its profit. Shops focused on brakes and oil changes are worth less because they face heavier competition and are less able to differentiate from other shops in the area.
Also, try to ensure that all of the equipment that you’ve purchased for your shop is actually being used regularly for repairs, if possible. New owners are reluctant to pay a good price for equipment that isn’t in use; unless they can find a way to bring it into use, it will become an investment that doesn’t generate any profit for them.
#3 – What reputation does your shop have? If your shop’s reputation has suffered recently, owners may not be willing to pay as high a multiple as they otherwise would. That’s because next year’s earnings may not look as good as last year’s earnings if customers stop visiting the shop.
One quick way to improve the value of your shop is to invest time in improving your publicly visible reputation. Always ask happy customers to leave reviews online, and try to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. If they do provide a review, make sure to thank them for their time, and ask them to spread the word if any of their friends or co-workers need auto service or repair!
To learn more about how Repair Shop Websites can help improve the value of your shop, call us at 866-665-1605 or contact us at Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com.
